On the morning after the fatal crash at Oregon 47 and Verboort Road, Forest Grove Fire Marshal David Nemeyer took a drive back to the site out of curiosity.

He and a few other firefighters were at headquarters, looking at photos of the accident from the previous day as part of training for what would have happened if Monday’s situation was different, what rescue options were available if the two Pacific University students had clung to life.

“That was pretty heavy,” Nemeyer recalled thinking. “I need to go out of the office.”

He wanted to drive the same route Kiden Dilla and Ayan Osman had driven.

As he entered the two roundabouts at Northwest Martin Road and Verboort Road and Northwest Cornelius Schefflin Road and Verboort Road, he watched his speedometer dip from around 45 mph to around 25 mph.

He rode along Verboort Road and stopped in the spot where the two Pacific University students stopped.

Nemeyer, incident commander at the time of the crash, recalled the words from the 9-1-1 dispatcher, as he approached the intersection: “The police are arriving. This one sounds like it is going to be a doozy.”

“I sat at that intersection and watched cars behind me acting impatient, acting like they wanted to go sooner,” he said.

Cars zipped past him on Oregon 47 in both directions. He did exactly what Dilla and Osman had attempted to do.

He turned left onto the highway and drove back to work.

That drive is familiar to residents in and around Forest Grove. The Forest Grove Transportation System Plan shows Oregon 8 and Oregon 47 are among the most heavily traveled roadways in Forest Grove. Oregon 47 carries roughly 7,700 vehicles per day north of Sunset Drive, with traffic peaking in the evening, according to the plan.

While the Oregon Department of Transportation does not have traffic volumes for the intersection, ODOT spokesperson Lou Torres said the agency are gathering those figures as part of its investigation following the fatal crash.

Thirty-nine crashes occurred at the intersection between January 2004 and September 2013, according to the Oregon Department of Transportation. One resulted in a fatality.

Seven crashes occurred at the roundabout at Cornelius Schefflin Road and Verboort Road between June 2010, the year it was completed, and July 2013, according to ODOT. Four people were injured, but none of the crashes resulted in fatalities.

In the five years before its installation, 15 crashes and three injuries occurred.

“We’re not saying [roundabouts] are going to eliminate crashes. It doesn’t. Crashes happen every day. But we’re trying to eliminate the type of crashes” that occur, ODOT spokesperson Lou Torres said.

Nemeyer said collisions at an intersection differ from those at the nearby roundabouts. Typically, at an intersection, when a car or truck driving on the highway hits a car entering the intersection, it either grazes the front or back of the car, causing it to spin, or collide from the side.

“Traditionally, those crashes out there are exactly like what we saw last week,” Nemeyer said.

At a roundabout, cars are forced to slow down as they enter the circle. If car gets hit by another vehicle, it would likely get swiped or rear-ended at low speeds.

Nemeyer said he would leave it to the traffic engineers to determine what’s best for the intersection and urged drivers to slow down when driving at that intersection. He noted that a traffic signal could be a good idea if the speed limit is lowered.

“I believe from my personal experience on these highways responding on hundreds of crashes, for the most part those roundabouts are the safest for our rural areas,” he said. “It’s too early to tell, but from what we’ve seen, the roundabout accidents are much less impactful than what we’ve seen on the Highway 47.”